Amazon’s Android App Store Terms Get Leaked

By Casey Pham on 09/29/2010

Though Amazon still hasn’t confirmed leaks about the book distributer’s plan on launching its own app store on Android devices alongside Google’s native Android Market, supposed terms for Amazon’s own app store on Android were leaked to SlashGear. Amazon’s terms for the store seems a bit more stringent than Google’s with its Android Market, but Amazon is hoping that its stricter DRM policies may be a benefit to the platform. According to the terms, Amazon is reserving the right to implement a copy protection mechanism via DRM on apps that are sold and distributed through its app store. DRM policies on Android Market has been a major issue holding back developers from bringing their apps to Android, for fear of rampant piracy. Other items of note include the fact that Amazon wants to host the apps in a cloud, even after they’ve been removed or deleted after a consumer purchases said app, for re-download at a later time, as well as the fact that Amazon could ban apps submitted to its app store if those apps launch on other portals before reaching the company’s store, effectively giving Amazon some sort of exclusivity. Other terms set for developers include a revenue share of 70 percent of the selling price or 20 percent of the list price along with a $99 annual fee to join. You can read the full terms on SlashGear.